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]Sr. C. TROOPS DUKING THE CIVIL WAR 55 

[Reprinted from the Proceedings of tbe N. C. Historial Association, 1917] 

The Raising, Organization and Equipment 
^ ^24 of North Carohna Troops During 

^^ I the Civil War 

Copy 1 



By Waxteb Clark, 
Chief Justice of North Carolina Supreme Court 



When Sir "Walter Scott issued the first of his novels in 
1805 it dealt with the war of 1745, the last attempt of the 
Stuarts to regain the throne, and he entitled it "^'Waverley, 
or 'Tis 60 Years Since.'' It is almost sixty years since our 
great struggle began in 1861, and it would be far easier for 
a great writer like Scott to clothe the palpable and familiar 
with the glamor of romance than it is for me to present to 
this generation an accurate, lifelike picture of the supreme 
effort of ISTorth Carolina in 1861-5. 

As compared with the great world struggle now in progress 
the War of 1861-5 seems small, but up to that time it was the 
gTeatest which the world had known. It lasted for four years, 
and the Federals first and last put into line 2,850,000 sol- 
diers. On the Southern side there were between six hundred 
and eight hundred thousand. The exact number cannot be 
settled, for our records have been largely lost. It is safe to 
say that no war was ever entered into with greater unpre- 
paredness on both sides. When the South went in she had no 
government but had to form one. It had not a soldier but had 
to call out an army, clothe, arm, and discipline it. It had no 
treasury and not a dollar to put in it. It was without fac- 
tories to make munitions or arms and without adequate facili- 
ties to clothe or feed the troops, for we had relied for years 
upon the IsTorth for manufactured articles and upon the 
Northwest for meat and corn and flour. 

The ISTorth had as a nucleus a small army and a navy, an 
organized government and a treasury. But the state of un- 
preparedness on both sides was beyond description. After 






56 THE NOETH CABOL.INA BOOKLET 

the first battle of Manassas the Confederate Government 
notified the Governor of this State that there was not enough 
powder in the Confederacy for another day's battle. This 
may be one of the reasons why the Confederates did not pur- 
sue their advantage by capturing Washington. So little 
aware was the l^^orth of the magnitude of the struggle that 
many of their regiments then, and even later, were "100 days 
men," enlisted for that period, with the impression that the 
Rebellion could be put down in that time, and by undrilled 
men. In i^orth Carolina the first regiment we sent out, 
the "Bethel Regiment," of glorious memory, commanded by 
Col. (later Lieut. General) D. H. Hill, was enlisted for six 
months, and the rest of our regiments for twelve months, ex- 
cept the ten State regiments which, with a foresight not shown 
probably by any other Southern State, were enlisted for 
"three years, or the war." These regiments were officered by 
appointment of the Governor, while the others, which were 
volunteer regiments, elected their own officers. 

The condition of things in the spring of 1861 would be 
hard to describe. Though South Carolina seceded on 20 
December, and other Southern States followed in January 
and February, and the new hostile government inaugTirated 
its president at Montgomery, 22 February, 1861, General 
Lee accepted a commission from Abraham Lincoln in the 
latter part of March, and did not resign till after Virginia 
seceded on 23 April. In the meantime hostilities had been 
begun by the attack on Fort Sumter on 12 April, and prior 
to that time the Biar of the West had been fired on in an at- 
tempt to enter Charleston harbor. Indeed there were' officers 
afterwards prominent in the Confederate x\rmy who did not 
leave the United States service till May. General Martin, 
afterwards so conspicious in organizing men and material 
for ISTorth Carolina, did not resign from the United States 
Army till our Ordinance of Secession was enacted, 20 May. 
And on his way home from his distant post in Kansas he met 
on the train his old army friend, U. S. Grant, and traveled 



m^ i '•" 



N. C. TEOOPS DURING THE CIVIL WAK 5Y 

amicably with him through Illinois and Indiana to Cincin- 
nati, Ohio. 

The utter inability of the people of both sections to fore- 
see the magnitude and duration of the struggle before them, 
added to the utter lack of preparedness on both sides, is shown 
by a common saying by speakers on both sides in raising 
volunteers, that they would "contract to wipe up the blood 
that would be spilled with a silk pocket handkerchief." This 
was true of the Confederate Government, which persistently 
refused, in the summer of 1861, to negotiate a loan of six 
hundred millions of dollars which was tendered by capitalists 
in Europe, and President Davis gave positive instructions 
that in no event should more than $15,000,000 be accepted. 
If the loan had been taken, of th© magnitude offered, the Con- 
federacy would early have been supplied with ammunition, 
arms, provisions, and a navy, and the blockade later, to which 
we owed our defeat, would have been impossible. It is quite 
clear that it was the failure of the Confederate officials to take 
this step of preparedness, even at that late date, which ren- 
dered vain the valor of our troops and the genius of our 
generals. Indeed, aside from the preparedness which we 
could even then have made, the European governments would 
have intervened, if necessary, to have preserved the invest- 
ment of their capitalists in tlie $600,000,000 loan which 
would have been taken if secured on cotton. 

There can hardly be found an instance in history of equal 
want of preparedness except in our War of 1812, when a 
force of 4,000 British soldiers, returning from the West 
Indies, landed at Point Lookout at the mouth of the Potomac, 
2,500 of whom defeated the American Volunteers at Bladen- 
boro, when President Madison (a member of the Constitu- 
tional Convention of 1787) and the Secretary of War, Mon- 
roe (a soldier of the Revolution), were present. It is said 
that 250 men of the British Army composed the force which 
captured Washington, burned the Capitol and the White 
House and destroyed public property, and that our Capital 



58 THE NORTH CAROLINA BOOKLET 

City was held that night by one single British soldier as a 
sentry on Capitol Hill. 

In North Carolina, though we did not secede till 20 May, 
1861, the Legislature which met 1 May provided for the 
raising of ten regiments ^'for three years, or the war," for the 
raising of volunteers and organization for the coming strug- 
gle. In a short time General Martin was made Adjutant 
General, Major John Devereux, Quartermaster, and Major 
Thomas D. Hogg, Commissary. At once steps were taken to 
procure supplies. Horses for the cavalry and transport service 
were brought from Kentucky, which was then still neutral 
gTound, and were hurried in droves through the mountains. 
Saddles and harness material were secured by special agents 
in New Orleans and rushed to Raleigh by rail. Powder works 
and arsenals for the manufacture and remodeling of arms 
were created. Thirty-seven thousand muskets were taken pos- 
session of by the State in the capture of the arsenal at Fay- 
etteville. These were mostly flint and steel, and skilled work- 
men were secured to turn them into percussion weapons, but 
even then so scarce was the supply of guns that we manufac- 
tured a large number of pikes, which were wooden poles shod 
at one end with iron (samples of which can be seen in our 
Historical Museum), and with these some organizations were 
equipped while others were entirely unarmed. Indeed, it 
was not until after several victories that, by the capture of 
arms and munitions, especially by the careful gathering up 
of the arms thrown away by the Northern troops in flight, we 
were able adequately to equip our soldiers. In fact, it was 
not until after the "Seven Days Battles Around Richmond," 
in June and July, 1862, that, by means of the large captures 
of guns and cannon, the South was at all able to adequately 
equip its soldiers. During the entire war a large part of our 
equipment of arms and munitions consisted of those taken 
from the enemy. 

In May, 1861, the State established camps of instruction 
at various points, and skilled armorers were gradually edu- 



N. C. TEOOPS DURING THE CIVIL, WAK 59 

cated, by the aid of the few we had, to make sabres, bayonets, 
and swords. For a long while percussion caps were made by 
a private firm (Kuester) in Raleigh. Shoes and clothing 
factories were located at several points in the State. Quar- 
termaster, commissary, and ordnance stores were collected, 
and cannon were provided for the artillery largely by melt- 
ing down the church bells, which source of supply was sup- 
plemented from time to time by captures from the enemy. 

The energy and ability shown by North Carolina in these 
preparations were very remarkable, and showed the innate 
ability of our population. 

The most remarkable instance in this line was the pur- 
chase by the State in 1862 of the Ad-Vance and three other 
vessels and the sending by this State of Mr. John White of 
Warrenton and Col. Duncan K. McRae to sell cotton and 
purchase supplies for our soldiers. No other State did this, 
nor did the Confederate Government. It is doubtful whether 
the Stat© could either have clothed or fed its people but for 
this enterprise. The list of importations is a curious one 
and reflects the needs of the State. From the records now 
being complied by Dr. D. H. Hill we find that ordnance 
stores to the amount of $488,000 and cotton cards to the 
value of $594,000 was brought into Wilmington. It was 
through these cotton and wool cards that the women of the 
State were able to clothe their families during the last two 
years of the war. Even the tacks with which these cards were 
fastened to the wooden handles had to be imported with 
them. Among the importations were cloth for uniforms, 
overcoats, jackets, trousers, caps, shoes, boots, sacks, angora 
skirts, oil cloth, oil tape, thread, button, paper, calf skins, 
leather, medicines, dyes, belting, cobbler's awls, needles, 
bleaching powders, buckles, scythe blades, iron, copper, wire, 
nails, and many other articles. 

Most of the imported cloth was manufactured into uni- 
forms for the men or sold to the officers. This work was 
done in a most systematic manner. The manufacturing es- 



60 THE NOETH CAEOLINA BOOKLET 

tablishment at Ealeigh was presided over by Capt J. W. 
Garrett, and afterwards by Major W. W. Pierce and Major 
H. A. Dowd. It was in the Quartermaster's Department, 
of which Major John Devereux had general supervision. Th© 
clothing was cut by expert tailors and then given out to 
women to be made into garments. Some of the material was 
shipped to various towns in the State and made up by clubs 
of women and shipped back. Blockade running was not only 
an absolute necessity to the State but was a success financi- 
ally, for on 9 March, 1865, near the end of the war, the busi- 
ness showed a profit of $1,325,000. This was largely made 
of course by the difl^erence between the price paid by the 
State for cotton and the value of the articles brought back by 
the steamers on their return voyages to the State. The 
steamers ran the blockade from Wilmington nearly due south 
to Nassau, in the Bahamas, to which point the supplies were 
brought without risk from England and stored. 

Not only were the North Carolina troops supplied with 
uniforms but a very large part of the cloth and the uniforms 
were sold to the Confederate Government. When Long- 
street's corps were sent to the west, where it enabled the army 
to win the victory at Chicamauga, it was furnished with new 
clothing entirely from North Carolina, both for the men and 
officers. 

The greater portion of the medical supplies for the South- 
ern army was thus brought in by the North Carolina block- 
ading steamers, and was unobtainable otherwise. 

Major T. D. Hogg, who was head of the Ordnance De- 
partment and later of the Commissary Department of the 
State, kept on hand, as he said, "Everything from frying 
pans to cannon," and the department supplied every con- 
ceiv.able article to the army. In the Ordnance Department 
the 'State was constantly manufacturing or remodeling arms 
and i-epairing and putting into condition those captured 
from time to time from the enemy or picked up on the bat- 
tlefield. Nitre for gunpowder was obtained mostly by dig- 



N. C. TfiOOPS DUKING THE CIVIL WAR 61 

ging up the ground in the smokehouses throughout the State 
and leaching out the nitre. 

The State contracted with the Confederate Government to 
make all the clothing for the !North Carolina troops after 
they were turned over to the Confederacy. During the first 
winter of 1861-1862 there was so large a rush of men to arms 
that the soldiers suffered considerably from cold. So great 
was the destitution that the women of the State, as patriotic 
then as now, took up the carpets from their floors, cut them 
up and lined them with coarse cloth and sent them on to the 
troops for use as blankets. Agents were sent as far South as 
New Orleans, and these also scoured the State, to buy blank- 
ets and warm clothes for the ISTorth Carolina troops. 

Not only did the State make clothing it went into the 
manufacture of arms, and at the Fayetteville arsenal thous- 
sands of good rifles were made. Later, rifle factories were 
established as private enterprises at Jamestown, Greensboro, 
and other points, and a firm in Wilmington made sabres and 
bayonets. A boring machine was devised by which smooth- 
bore muskets were turned into rifles, and thousands of anti- 
quated muskets were changed from flint and steel to per- 
cussion locks. 

The State also arranged with manufacturers at many 
points in this State to go into the manufacture of shoes. To 
some of these the State furnished the hides, and in many 
cases the State bought green hides and had them tanned on 
shares. Agents were sent into all the western counties to 
buy hides, leather, and wool. These were collected and 
hauled to the manufacturers, to a very large amount in wag- 
ons, or accumulated in warehouses, for it must be remem- 
bered at that time we had not more than a third of our pres- 
ent railroad mileage. 

To keep on hand a large supply of cotton goods, the State 
agreed to take the total output of many of the cotton mills 
and pay them 75 per cent profit. The lack of clothing among 
the people at home became so severe that certain days were 



- • 

62 THE NORTH CAEOLINA BOOKLET 

set apart on which the output of the mills might be sold, and 
on those days large numbers of women came from all quar- 
ters to buy the cotton yarns or clotli. In some cases they 
walked even ten or twelve miles and carried their yarn and 
cloth home on their backs, and sometimes in carts or wag- 
ons. 

Time fails me to go into all the various enterprises which 
the State inaugurated to support its armies in the field. De- 
tails are largely given by Major A. Gordon and Major W. A. 
Graham of the Adjutant General's Deperatment in the First 
Volume of the "N. C. Regimental Histories." A committee 
was appointed in 1867 to ascertain the amount expended by 
this State in aid of the war, composed of J. C. Harper, R. H. 
Battle, and H. W. Husted, whose report shows that the State 
expended for military purposes alone, to carry on the war 
(leaving out the last three months, for which the records 
were lost), more than $37,000,000. While part of this was 
in Confederate currency it is fair to estimate that full $20,- 
000,000 was furnished by this State for that purpose. This 
was exclusive of the amounts which were spent by the several 
counties for the relief of the widows, wives, and children of 
the soldiers and to relieve distress among the old and infirm. 
The State established salt works on the coast and also took 
part in the manufacture of salt at Saltville, in Southwest Vir- 
ginia. By this means the State, and especially the country 
districts, were supplied with that indispensable article. 

In addition to these expenditures the Stat© used a large 
sum in the blockade business. In that business the State 
imported $5,947,000 of goods, in addition to the cost of the 
steamer Ad. Vance and our three other vessels, the Don, the 
Hansd, and the Annie. 

These various enterprises were largely suggested by and 
due to the energy of Gen. James G. Martin, who had seen 
service in the Quartermaster's Department of the United 
States Army, but he was most ably seconded by Major John 
Devereux, Major T. D. Hogg, and the other officials under 



N. C. TROOPS DURING THE CIVIL WAR 63 

liiin. Governor Vance, being the Governor of the State at 
that time, assumed the responsibility for the Ad Vance and 
the entire system by which the State imported these necessary 
articles, and he did so against the advice of eminent counsel 
who assured him that such action would make him liable to 
impeachment. He reaped his reward in the approval of the 
soldiery, whom he kept warm and supplied with clothing, 
food, and other necessaries, and in the remembrance of the 
people at home whom he supplied with salt and other neces- 
sary articles, and he won the lasting gratitude of the women 
to whom he furnished the cotton cards which enabled them to 
clothe themselves and children, and this made him after the 
war invincible in the hearts of the people of North Carolina. 

The "blockade-running" enterprise of this State was not 
adopted by any other Southern State nor, strange to say, by 
the Confederate Government, to whom the State turned over 
a large part of the supplies it received by these methods. 
When the war ended North Carolina still had on hand here 
and in London many thousand bales of cotton which it had 
bought for this trad© and the largest supply of English cloth 
for soldiers and officers, which were stored at Greensboro. 
The enterprise was successful till September, 1864, when the 
Confederate Government, having taken for a cruiser the sup- 
ply of anthracite coal brought from England which the Ad. 
Vance* had stored up in Wilmington for her own use, she 
was forced to use the bituminous and inferior coal from Chat- 
ham County, and the black trail of smoke that she made and 
a lowered speed caused her capture. 

As to provisions, so large a part of "Virginia was occupied 
b ythe enemy and the other Southern States being less fitted 
for raising corn and farther from Lee's army, more than half 
of the supplies of that army came from North Carolina. 
Major Hogg, the Commissary of this State, said that in the 
spring of 1865 North Carolina was feeding more than half 
of Lee's army. 



* This was a double pun. The vessel was primarily named Ad- Vance, i.e., 
'to- Vance," and the "Advance" or first — not A. D. Vance. 



64: THE NOETH CAEOLINA BOOKLET 

It is to be remembered that the taxes of the Confederacy 
were largely levied in kind by the tithing bureau which re- 
ceived from each farm one-tenth of all the meat, corn, and 
other provisions raised which were put into the tithing ware- 
houses and thence transported to the army from time to time 
as needed. There were tithing agents in each neighborhood 
who saw to it that the fanner turned over to the Government 
one-tenth of his produce, and over him was a tithing agent 
in each county. In a time of depreciated currency, and of an 
imperative demand for provisions by the army, no better 
system probably could have been devised. 

The Confederate conscript law was adopted early in 1862 
by which all men between 18 and 35 were taken for the army, 
with certain exemptions, on account of disability and public 
service. The age later was changed from 18 to 45. In the 
spring of 1864 the necessity of filling the ranks was such 
that boys from 17 to 18 were conscripted and formed into 
regiments and batalions of Junior Eeserves, and those from 
45 to 50 were likewise formed into Senior Keserves. 

Nor should mention be omitted of the large supplies which 
were sent by the women of the State from their scanty stores 
to their relatives in the army. During the last three months 
of 1864, as Pollard's History states, $325,000 worth of sup- 
plies passed through the office in Richmond sent by the wo- 
men of this State direct to our soldiers in our time of 
greatest destitution, in addition to what the State Govern- 
ment was officially sending to the troops. 

Throughout the war it was noted, without contradiction, 
that the best supplied, best clothed and equipped soldiers of 
the whole army were from ISTorth Carolina. 

I cannot undertake in the brief space of this article to 
narrate what would require a volume, in order to set out 
adequately the support which ISTorth Carolina furnished to 
the Confederacy. It must be recalled that while now the 
State has 2,500,000 people, by the census of 1860 she had 
only 992,622, of whom full one-third were negroes. These 



N. C. TKOOPS DURING THE CIVIL WAR 65 

latter did their share in faithfully furnishing provisions 
raised on the farms for the support of the soldiers and of the 
people at home. To their credit there was not a single at- 
tempt, recorded in the four years, of insurrection or law- 
lessness. Out of less than 700,000 white population the State 
sent 125,000 splendid soldiers to the front besides the Home 
Guards, who preserved order, guarded bridges, and at times 
strengthened our lines in l^orth Carolina. Many thousand 
negroes were also drafted from time to time to build breast- 
works and forts. 

The proportion of soldiers furnished by this State to the 
Confederate cause was nearly one in every five of the total 
white population. This is a larger ratio than is now being 
furnished by Germany in her strenous efforts, though that 
country is largely aided by the enforced work of prisoners 
and of the population drafted fro mBelgium and other oc- 
cupied territory, contrary to all the rules of civilized war- 
fare and the express stipulations of the Hague treaties. 

It is safe to say that of the armies of the thirteen Con- 
federate States, more than one-sixth were soldiers from this 
State. This State also furnished fully one-fifth of the pro- 
visions and other supplies for the Confederate armies. 

Unlike Germany, with its thirty years preparation for 
war, North Carolina went into the war totally unprepared. 
But she grappled the task which came to her, and no state on 
either side, and probably no state in history, furnished from 
its population a larger proportion of soldiers, nor from its 
material resources a larger support, to the cause in which it 
embarked than this Commonwealth. If the cause finally 
failed no blame can be laid upon a state which went into that 
war reluctantly but which, when it once entered, stinted 
neither in men, in courage or in supplies in its ardent sup- 
port to the side which its people had espoused. 



66 THE NOKTH CAROLINA BOOKLET 



Tar River (The Name) 



By Bruce Gotten 



It seems to be well established, both by tradition and by 
official documents that this river was once sometimes called 
Taw River. Most of our ]^orth Carolina histories have so 
stated and there are numerous wills, deeds and other papers 
preserved which refer to it as Taw or Tor River. 

Lawson in his thousand miles journey in 1701 appears 
to have crossed Tar River a few miles below the present 
town of Greenville. However, he calls it the Pampticough 
and neither in his text nor on his map does the name Tar, 
or Taw, appear. 

Williamson calls it Taw River wherever referred to in his 
work, and says that in the Indian language the word Taw 
signifies the river of health. 

Dr. Hawks repudiates this assertion of Williamson and 
says: 

"Its name is not Tar, though Col. Byrd called it by that 
name more than one hundred years ago. Others have sup- 
posed its original Indian name to be Taw or Tor, which 
Williamson with his customary dogmatism, ig-norantly states 
means 'Health,' It never had such a meaning in any dia- 
lect of the Algonquin or Iroquois that we have met with (and 
these were the two mother languages of the Indians of the 
eastern side of North Carolina) nor was there any such 
Indian Word as far as we can discover; though such a syl- 
lable formed from an Indian word, is found in the compo- 
sition of Indian words, according to the known polythinseti- 
cism of our Indian tongues. But the river was notwith- 
standing, called Taw, for we find (as I am informed by a 
friend*) that name applied in a patent of 1729. 



• H. T. Clark. Esq., of Edgecombe. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




013 763 130 1 




LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



013 763 130 i 



